


First Pregnancy

by ByTheDawn



Series: 300challenge [7]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Infant Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1400437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ByTheDawn/pseuds/ByTheDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the #300Challenge, based off of the title prompt. Regina's first pregnancy goes wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Pregnancy

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS NOT FLUFF!

“Something is wrong.” The words left her mouth reluctantly, even though she had known the truth since last night. Saying the words, however, made them real and she had resisted making them that as long as possible.

Johanna eyed her with a sigh, took in the panic that Regina knew belay her eyes, took in the way her hands nervously flitted over her extended stomach, and the way her feet refused to stay still as she stood, causing her to pace the same three feet over and over. Johanna didn’t question her, instead she bowed lightly and left the Queen’s bedroom.  
“I’ll get the doctor for you, love.” She said sympathetically, and Regina sat down on a footstool in an effort to calm herself. Everything had been going so well; she had gotten pregnant easily, no doubt inspired by her desire to be done with this part of her job as Queen. The sooner she provided Leopold with a second heir, the sooner she would not have to share his bed anymore. Neither of them took pleasure in the activity, but it was expected of her to have a child.

Despite her hate of Leopold and her captivity, realizing she was expecting had brought her great joy. A child would infinitely brighten her days and take away some of the loneliness that plagued her. The first time she had felt her baby move had solidified that she was now a mother, and whatever happened, she would always be a mother. Shaking, she realized that if her fears were becoming reality, that if the small life inside of her had perished, she no longer had a term to call herself.

What did you call a mother without a child? Would she always stay a mother, even though there would never be an infant to hold and spoil?

The wait lasted an eternity, and it was filled with an anxiety that was paralyzing to the brain. She couldn’t think, couldn’t calm herself, but also couldn’t panic. She was suspended in a state of flux that would only be broken once the doctor arrived to deliver the verdict. She hoped he never came, because now, at least she had a sliver of hope.

Of course he did come, and she let Johanna take her hand as he examined her. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him as he listened and prodded, clacking his tongue on occasion and crushing her heart each time. He pulled Johanna aside as she dressed herself again, and Regina couldn’t help but spy on them. When he slowly shook his head, Regina felt whatever small sliver of hope she had managed to preserve die and take what little joy remained in her with it. She felt dead—as dead as the months old child still nestled in her uterus. 

Johanna held her as she cried, crumbling to the floor in a heap and dragging Johanna down with her. The older woman cradled her head, told her it would be alright, that it happened to a lot of women. That the first pregnancy often went wrong. By the time Regina stilled, still hanging limply in the elder woman’s strong arms, Johanna told her about the herbs she would be taking from today onwards until her body would reject the foetus. It would take a week at most, then she would give birth to her dead child. The thought renewed her tears, and once more, Johanna cradled her head into her neck and pressed kisses upon it. 

In that moment, Regina was not a queen, and Johanna not a servant. They were two women who were bonded through a terrible experience. Regina never asked if Johanna perhaps related on a personal level; she barely had space in her head and heart for her own pain.

The herbs tasted bitter, but she drank the hot tea down three times a day, wishing she could speed the progress. Now she knew the baby was dead, she could think of nothing but its lifeless body inside of her. She woke up bathing in sweat, screaming in fear, as she had nightmare after nightmare of her rotting and putrefied baby either dissolving her from the inside-out or dripping from between her legs in black globs of fresh and fractured bone.

The fever set in on the third day. It was expected, Johanna told her, but when the fever spiked to a degree where the nightmares even plagued her when she was awake, she could see the worry in the servant’s eyes, and the doctor appeared at her bedside. An infection, he told her, and it didn’t register at all. It only registered two days later, when she went into labour.

It was swift and traumatic, and afterwards she wished she had not shouted at the doctor that she wanted a look at her child—her son—while being infinitely grateful she had at the same time. He was the size of her outstretched hand, small limbs and a big head. His skin was translucent, his eyes shut tight. He had fingers and toes, and a tiny nose and lips. He wasn’t rotting, though, and she cried joyful tears over that as she tried not to scream the scream of anguish she felt tear at her throat. She couldn’t, not now. Not while her son was still here. 

When they took him away, Leopold came to her, patting her hand a moment before telling her she had done well; that she had tried. He told her they were done trying, and left it to Johanna to tell her that the infection had left her barren. Again, it was Johanna who held her hand as she curled into a ball of pain and regret and cried until exhaustion claimed her.

They buried the King’s son the next day and named him Sebastian, after his father. Leopold refused to give his own name to a son who hadn’t even drawn breath. It was a small ceremony, just Leopold, Snow, Johanna, and a hand full of staff, most of whom were there to fill the hole in the ground they lowered her son’s small casket into. Snow was inconsolable, but Regina did not cry, not a single tear. Still, she was the only one left standing long after the dirt had been shovelled into the grave and a stone slab placed on top of that. His name would be carved into it at a later date.

Regina stood at the grave until night fell and her weak body trembled and bled. She stayed until Johanna collected her and put her to bed after sedating her with a strong herbal tea she did not ask after. She did, however, reach out to the older woman and begged her to sit with her while she slept. Johanna did, sitting quietly with Regina’s hand in hers, and Regina slept the sleep of the dead, a dreamless sleep that did not replenish any of her reserves. She slept for the first time as a mother with a child in the ground, a mother whose first pregnancy had turned into the last, and who now knew for sure that everything she loved ended as dead as the heart she wished she could rip out of her chest just so she would never have to feel this pain again.

It were these events Regina remembered as she looked upon the servant woman trembling in the clock tower. It was her kindness she thought of as she tore the elder woman’s heart from her chest and examined it. As Snow crumpled into David’s arms after Cora casually ended Johanna’s life, Regina fought her own pain, standing once more near the body of someone who had meant something to her—someone who had been family. Treacherously, it was Cora she turned to in her sorrow, because of all the family she had left, Cora shared her blood and at least she still drew breath—unlike her stillborn son and any chance she would ever have at another.


End file.
